Earthlings, page 2
They probably said the same thing every year, but considering we were an item now I quietly looked down, feeling embarrassed.
“It’s true, the two of them are like twins,” another aunt said.
For some reason, everyone said I didn’t look like my sister or my parents, but I did look just like Yuu.
“Oh, but you mustn’t stand out here in the hall talking. Kise, Natsuki, come inside. You must be tired!” A fat aunt I had absolutely no recollection of ever having seen before said this and clapped her hands.
“Yes, let’s go in,” Dad said, nodding.
“Go put your luggage upstairs. You can use the far room. The Yamagatas are in the other one. The Fukuokas are already up there, but they’re only staying for one more night so you don’t mind sharing, do you?”
“Fine by us, thanks,” Dad answered, taking off his shoes. I hurried after him.
In Granny’s house, everyone called the various families by the name of the place they lived in, like Yamagata or Fukuoka or Chiba, which made it hard for me to remember their real names. They must have had names, though, so why didn’t anyone use them?
“Kise, Natsuki, first go greet your ancestors,” Dad said.
We headed for the room where the family altar was kept, between the living room and the kitchen. Yuu and I always called this the altar room. There was only one corridor in Granny’s house, leading to the bathroom. All the other six rooms on the first floor including the kitchen, living room, and the two main tatami rooms were connected by sliding doors.
The altar room was a modestly sized six-mat room, about the same size as my bedroom back home in Mirai New Town in Chiba. Yota called it the ghosts’ room to frighten his little brothers, but somehow I always felt safe there, perhaps because I sensed that my ancestors were watching over me.
Mom and Dad each lit a stick of incense, and my sister and I did the same. We didn’t have an altar at home, and I’d never seen them in my friends’ houses either. The only times I’d ever smelled incense were here at Granny’s house and when we visited temples. I liked the smell.
After lighting her incense stick, my sister suddenly crouched down, her head bowed.
“Kise, is something wrong?”
“Seems she got a bit carsick on the way.”
“Oh dear. That mountain road again.”
The aunts laughed. One or two of my cousins also joined in, covering their mouths with their hands as they shook with laughter. I had more than ten cousins just on my dad’s side. I couldn’t remember all their faces. Nobody would notice if an alien slipped in among them.
“Kise, are you okay?” Mom asked as my sister suddenly brought her hand to cover her mouth.
“Dear, dear. You’ll feel better once you’ve thrown up,” an aunt said.
“I’m sorry,” Mom said, bowing her head in apology, and headed for the toilet hugging my sister close.
“Is that mountain road really all that bad?” asked another aunt. “I mean, how feeble can you get? She could always just walk up if she doesn’t like riding in the car.”
I felt sorry for my sister. She doesn’t have Piyyut like I do. “Don’t you think you should go too?” I asked Dad.
“No, she’ll be all right,” he said, but when he heard her crying he hurried off to help.
I felt better now that she had both Mom and Dad with her.
The phrase “close-knit family,” which I’d come across in a school library book and had stuck in my mind, always came back to me whenever I saw my parents and sister together. If I wasn’t here, the three of them would make a perfect unit. So I wanted them to spend time together as a close-knit family without me now and then.
Piyyut had taught me the magical power of invisibility. I didn’t actually become invisible. I just held my breath and could make myself go unnoticed. When I did this, they became a cozy family of three, all snuggled up together. I sometimes made use of the power for their sake.
“You really like Granny’s house, don’t you Natsuki?” Mom often said to me. “Kise’s like me. She likes the seaside better than the mountains.”
Mom didn’t like Granny much and wasn’t at all pleased by how excited I always got about going to Akishina. My sister always complained about coming to Granny’s and clung to Mom at home. So of course she was Mom’s favorite.
I picked up my things and headed for the stairs. I felt nervous at the thought that Yuu was up there.
“Are you okay on your own, Natsuki?”
“Sure,” I said, hoisting my backpack onto my back as I went up.
The stairs in Granny’s house were much steeper than the ones in our house in Chiba. They were practically a ladder, and you had to use your hands to climb them. I always felt like a cat when I went up them.
“Take care!” I heard someone say, an aunt or maybe a cousin. “I will!” I answered without turning around.
Upstairs there was a strong smell of tatami and dust. I went through to the far room and put down my things.
Uncle Teruyoshi told me that long ago this used to be the room where they kept silkworms. Apparently there used to be lots of bamboo baskets packed with eggs, which hatched into larvae that grew rapidly and spread throughout the second floor. By the time they spun their cocoons the whole house was full of them.
I’d seen pictures of silkworms in school library books. As an adult, the worm transformed into a big, white moth, much prettier than any butterfly I’d seen. I’d heard that silk thread was harvested from the worms, but I’d never gotten around to asking how they got the thread and what happened to the silkworms afterward. How magical it must have been to have all those pure-white wings fluttering around the house! It was like something out of a fairy tale, and I loved this room where the baby silkworms had been laid out in rows.
As I slid open the door to leave, I heard the floor creak faintly.
Someone else was up here.
I moved toward the room that everyone called the attic, although it was still on the same level as the rest of the second floor, and slid open the door into the large, pitch-black space. This is where Granny stored all the old toys Dad and my uncles and aunts once played with, along with a large number of books that someone or other had collected. We children always came here to look for treasure.
“Yuu?” I called into the darkness.
Our feet got really dirty when we went into the attic, so we were always being told to make sure to wear the sandals we use to go out onto the veranda, but I was too impatient to fetch them. I just took off my socks before stepping into the darkness.
“Yuu, are you there?”
I headed for a small point of light emanating from a tiny lamp, the only light in the dark room even at midday. There was a rustling, and I almost screamed.
“Who’s that?” came a small voice.
“Yuu! It’s Natsuki!”
A small white figure appeared indistinctly from the depths.
“Natsuki! Finally!” Yuu was standing there in the faint glow.
I ran over to him. “Yuu! I missed you!”
“Shhh!” he said, hastily putting a hand over my mouth. “We’ll be in trouble if Granny or Yota hear us.”
“Yeah, true. Our love’s still a secret, isn’t it?”
Yuu looked at me shyly. He hadn’t changed at all in the past year. Maybe it was because he was an alien that he didn’t grow. But even in the dark, I could tell it was him from his light brown eyes and thin neck.
“At last we’re together again!”
“It’s been a whole year, hasn’t it, Natsuki. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you too. Uncle Teruyoshi told me you’d be coming today, so I got up early to wait for you. But he said you’d be late.”
“Is that why you’re up here playing on your own?”
“Yeah. I got bored.”
Yuu hadn’t just stopped growing, I had the feeling that he’d even shrunk. Cousin Yota had filled out since last year, but Yuu’s neck and wrists looked like they’d gotten even skinnier. Maybe it was just because I’d grown, but he looked so fragile that I couldn’t help feeling worried.
I grabbed the edges of his white T-shirt and felt the faint warmth of his body as my fingertips brushed his skin. Maybe it was because he was an alien that his body temperature was low. His hands felt cool as they connected with mine.
“Yuu, are you going to be here for the whole of Obon this year?” I asked, gripping his hands as hard as I could.
Yuu nodded. “Yeah, I will. Mitsuko took a long vacation this year, so she said we could stay.”
“Great!”
Yuu called his mom Mitsuko instead of Mom. Apparently she’d told him to. Aunt Mitsuko had divorced three years ago, and since then she’d depended on Yuu as though he were her husband. He said he had to kiss her cheek every night before going to bed, so I’d gotten him to promise to reserve the proper kiss for me.
“What about you, Natsuki?”
“I’ll be here all through Obon too!”
“Great! Uncle Teruyoshi bought some big rockets for the fireworks this year. He said we’ll let them off on the last night.”
“I’m looking forward to the sparklers too!” I said excitedly.
Yuu gave a little smile.
“Will you go looking for the spaceship again this year?”
“Sure, if there’s time.”
“But you won’t go away with the aliens straight away, will you?”
Yuu shook his head. “I won’t, I promise. Even if I find it, I’d never leave without saying goodbye to you, Natsuki.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d pestered Yuu to take me with him in the spaceship, but he’d said he couldn’t. He promised to come back for me sometime, though. He was sweet but strong-willed.
I had the feeling he might disappear at any moment. I wanted to become an alien, too, and I felt jealous of him having somewhere to go home to.
“Yota said he was secretly going to open up the well, without the grown-ups knowing.”
“The old well that’s been closed up forever? I want to see it!”
“Sure, let’s go see it together. And Uncle Teruyoshi said he’d take us to go watch fireflies once it gets dark.”
“Brilliant!”
Yuu took everything seriously, and whenever he saw something strange he wanted to know all about it. Uncle Teruyoshi loved telling us about this house and the village, and he ended up spending more time with Yuu than anyone else.
“Yuu! Natsuki! Come downstairs and have some of this cold watermelon,” an aunt called.
“Let’s go.”
Yuu and I left the attic still holding hands.
“Afterward let’s go play together, Natsuki.”
“Yes, let’s.”
I nodded, feeling myself blush. I was so happy to be with my boyfriend again.
Dad was one of six siblings, and the extended family gathering for Obon was always madness. We couldn’t all fit in the living room at once, so the sliding doors between the two large tatami rooms at the end of the house had been removed, and a long, low table was set up with cushions on the floor for our meals.
The house was full of bugs, but nobody made a big deal of it. Back home in Chiba even a small fly would cause panic, but Mom and my sister never made a fuss about the insects in Granny’s house. The boys would eagerly run around killing them with a flyswatter, but even so there were still always flies and grasshoppers and bugs I’d never seen before crawling around the room.
All the girls old enough to help went to the kitchen to make dinner. Even my sister was quietly peeling potatoes.
I was put in charge of dishing up the rice. There were two rice cookers sitting side by side. I filled bowl after bowl as six-year-old Ami, the daughter of one of my cousins, put them onto a tray and carried them through to the long table in the tatami room, helped by Cousin Mari.
“First lot of rice coming up! Make way, please!”
Cousin Mari slid open the kitchen door, and she and Ami went past the family altar to where the uncles were sitting around one end of the table waiting.
“Stop daydreaming and get that rice served!” Mom yelled at me from where she stood tending the pans on the stove.
“Oh, come now, Natsuki’s doing a great job,” Granny said, glancing over at me as she cut slices of a stinky seaweed jelly that I hated.
“That child is hopeless. She can’t do anything properly. I get tired just watching her. It gets on my nerves. Yuri, on the other hand, is doing so well, though. She’s already in junior high, isn’t she?”
I was used to Mom saying I was hopeless. And she was right, I really was a dead loss. The rice I dished up just lay flat in the bowl instead of being nicely mounded.
“Look how messy that is! Just let Yuri take over. Such a clumsy child.” Mom sighed.
“That’s not true! She’s doing very well!” an aunt said, flattering me.
I carried on serving the rice as best I could, hoping nobody else would call me a loser.
“That red bowl is Uncle Teruyoshi’s, so be sure to give him lots, okay?” my aunt told me. I piled on as much as the bowl would hold.
“It’s already dark,” someone said. “Not long now before we have to go welcome the ancestors.”
“They’ll soon be lighting the bonfire to guide them to us.”
I thought I’d better hurry up and quickly reached for the next bowl.
“Hey, we’re going to light the fire now!” Uncle Teruyoshi called from the front door.
“Oh, it’s time! Natsuki, we’ll deal with this. Off you go, now!”
“Okay!” I said, handing my aunt the rice scoop as I stood up.
I could hear insects chirring outside. Darkness had fallen, and the world beyond the kitchen window was now the color of outer space.
All of us children followed Uncle Teruyoshi. At the river he would light the fire to welcome the spirits of our ancestors on their annual visit home for the Obon festival.
Yuu was carrying an unlit paper lantern, and I had a flashlight.
The Akishina mountains were in darkness. The river we’d been splashing around in last summer was now so black it felt as though it would swallow us up. As Uncle Teruyoshi set fire to a bundle of straw on the riverbank, our faces glowed orange in its light. We did as Uncle told us and faced the flames.
“Dear Ancestors, please use this fire to guide you to us,” Uncle Teruyoshi said.
“Dear Ancestors, please use this fire to guide you to us!” we all shouted in unison.
As we stared at the burning straw, Uncle Teruyoshi said, “Right then, they must be here by now. Light the lantern, Yota.”
When he said they were here, little Ami let out a strangled shriek.
“You mustn’t shout,” Uncle told her. “You’ll startle them.”
I gulped.
The flame was gently transferred from the straw to the lantern. Yota picked it up and staggered slightly as he cautiously carried it to the house, obeying Uncle Teruyoshi’s warning not to let the fire go out.
“Uncle, are the ancestors inside that fire?” I asked Uncle Teruyoshi.
He nodded. “That’s right. The fire guided them to us.”
As Yota carried the lantern onto the veranda and into the tatami room, the aunts came out to greet us.
“Careful now . . .”
“Make sure it doesn’t go out!”
At their urging, Yota proceeded through to the end of the room where an altar had been set up specially for Obon.
Uncle Teruyoshi lit a candle from the flame in the lantern. On the altar were a cucumber and an eggplant, each with four legs made from disposable chopsticks. These represented the horse to bring the ancestral spirits quickly back home and the cow to slow their return to the other world, making them stay longer in the living world. Ami and Yuri had made them that afternoon, knowing the ancestors were on their way.
“There we are,” he said. “The spirits of our ancestors are now here around the flame. Natsuki, when the candle burns down, be sure to replace it, okay? Make sure the flame doesn’t go out. Otherwise the ancestors won’t have anything to guide them, and they’ll be in trouble.”
“Okay,” I said.
I looked at the table and saw that Dad and my uncles had taken their seats and were already drinking sake, while the women rushed around preparing food and serving it up.
My sister and I sat with the other children. On the table in front of us were large serving dishes of edible wild greens and stewed vegetables.
“I want a hamburger!” Yota said loudly, and Uncle Teruyoshi slapped him on the head.
A grasshopper hopped past a plate of soy-simmered locusts on the table.
“Yota, get rid of that.”
Yota deftly caught the grasshopper in both hands and went to put it outside.
“Don’t be silly! If you open the screen, lots of bugs will come in.”
“Okay, I’ll go feed it to a spider, then,” I said, standing up and taking the live grasshopper from Yota. I took it to the kitchen and gently stuck it on a cobweb. It offered no fierce resistance, just fluttered its wings slightly and became tangled in the spider’s silk.
“What a treat for the spider,” said Yuu behind me.
“I wonder if it can eat something this big?”
The spider looked taken aback by the huge prey suddenly caught in its web.
We went back to the table and started eating the locusts. I wondered whether the spider had started eating the grasshopper yet and felt a bit queasy. Still, the locusts were sweet and crispy. I shoved another one in my mouth.
As the night wore on, the house became enveloped in the noisy chirring of insects. Some of the children were snoring, but the creatures outside were a lot louder than we humans.
If you left a light on, however dim, bugs would flock to the window screens, so the rooms were kept in absolute darkness. As I normally slept with a lamp on, I felt a little scared and clutched the quilt close to me. The thought of Yuu sleeping just the other side of the sliding doors calmed me.
